Global literary celebration blooms in Daylesford

The Irishman James Joyce's roughly 265,000 word tome Ulysses has attracted a lot of attention ever since it was first published as a magazine serial between 1918 and 1920. Even among literary circles it's known as a hefty book that's extraordinarily difficult to work through. Yet, every year on the 16th of June - the day the novel is set - it continues to be celebrated around the world, on what is known as Bloomsday. And this year, Daylesford's joining the party.

The recently renovated Rex Theatre will host Sunday's celebration, where actress Maggie Millar will read from the final chapter of Ulysses as Molly Bloom.

The president of the Daylesford Community Theatre Loretta Little says Bloomsday is particularly big in Ireland.

"They're tremendously proud of James Joyce. Molly Bloom was a prostitute and she's feted, particularly in Dublin, on the 16th of June every year. There's music and there's performance and so forth, it's huge.

"We decided - having had an approach by Maggie Millar, who's one of Australia's well known actors - that we're going to celebrate Bloomsday."

Ms Little says the plan is to continue to celebrate Bloomsday in Daylesford every year.

She says the book was banned at one point for some of the language used.

"Apparently one of the chapters is Molly lying next to her husband and talking and probably using some fairly unacceptable - for that time - words and phrases. So it was banned. But all the best books have been banned haven't they?"

Maggie Millar says Ulysses is a significant work of literature.

"It's been acknowledged by many people as the greatest novel of the 20th century. I mean it's an extraordinary piece. It's ostensibly a day in the life of Leopold Bloom, but it's much more complicated than that. It's called Ulysses because of the Greek hero and it's his ruminations and his relationships. It's impossible to describe it in very few words because it is such a vast work."

Ms Millar says it's hard to know how a book could have such an impact when so few people seem to have read it cover to cover.

"I haven't read it all myself, I blush to admit. I have seen the film, there was a wonderful film made by Joseph Strick in the 1960s, I was actually auditioning for the role of Molly and Barbara Jefford played it in the end, it's a marvellous film. And I have a CD recording of it as well but again, that's an abridged version."

Ms Millar says she performed as Molly on Bloomsday in Dublin a few years ago.

"That was extraordinary, a marvellous experience for me. Because I think I'm the only Australian actress ever to have read Molly Bloom in Dublin on Bloomsday."

But she says she wasn't able to perform the entire final chapter due to the book still being under copyright in Europe.

"I had to get permission from James Joyce's grandson who runs the Joyce estate. He's very careful about who he gives permission to, in fact he doesn't give permission to anybody. I sent him a letter and begged him, because I'd been asked to read it by the James Joyce Society in Dublin. And he sent me a rather rude letter back saying under no circumstances was I to read anything from his grandfather's great work.

"But under the fair usage law you can actually read extracts from any work of literature, whether it's out of copyright or not, so long as it's only a certain percentage. So I was able to read quite a bit of the last chapter."

Despite the book revolving around a man at the start of the 20th century, Ms Millar says it's still a relevant story today.

"Because he's a kind of everyman, I think. And it's very complex and interesting and I think a lot of people relate to it even though you mightn't have read the whole novel."

She says Molly is a "marvellous" character.

"She's a very life-affirming, wonderfully vibrant, sexy, thoughtful, fun-filled woman. People often think, 'oh it's a bit turgid', but it's not at all. She's just a delight to read.

"The difficulty with reading it in the book is that it's all a stream of consciousness and there's no punctuation."

In 2011, there was a push to get the Twitter community involved with Bloomsday by asking people to tweet quotes from the book on the 16th of June. Ms Millar says it's important to update celebrations to keep them relevant and to make them more inclusive.

"These days we're much more used to doing things very quickly. I think it's much more demanding of a reader to read something like that than to read an 'el cheapo' doorstopper at the airport.

"But I think it's important with great works of literature that we do make them relevant to the current reading public."

A number of people responded to a question on the ABC Ballarat and South West Vic Facebook page, asking whether anyone out there had read Ulysses.

Georgie says she started reading it but can't remember finishing it.

Kym says she read it but skipped some chapters, "because they were just not worth it".

Lisa says she and her schoolmates read it as a rebellious act during class in year eight.